12 August 2017

Welcome Back with Whisky!

It took 1.5 weeks to get over my jet-lag and general exhaustion after two years of intense MFA followed by six more intense weeks of teaching, but I'm feeling mostly back-to-normal finally. To celebrate, Stan, me and some friends booked a whisky tasting event at Jeremiah's Taproom. It was only £10, so we thought, 'What the hey!' and got four tickets, knowing we could find friends to join us. Indeed...

This is Jeremiah's (their photo) right on Elm Row. Absolutely charming. The room in the back is for events like this one, so that's where we headed.

Turns out this was a true tasting and learning experience. This was the spread.

We were given grains to smell, a color wheel to examine the difference range of flavors,

And walked through the distillation process.

It was actually quite informative, and it was interesting how our tastes varied. Stan loves the ones that smelled like stinky socks in the middle. (Blythe hated that one.) This one was my fave - nice and smoooooth.

What we weren't counting on was that Nigel (our fair leader) then brought in three various cocktails to demonstrate how these extremely fine whiskys worked in mixed drinks (to reach a younger audience). OMG.
Snacks came with all of this too (yes, still included in that £10), but they arrived a little too late. The damage had been done. Here's Blythe and Elena.

Amandine and Stan.

And a selfie with Elena and Amandine, and a very toasty me in the middle.

Oh - we had fun! And sang down the sidewalk on the way home. (One nice thing about being in a pedestrian city is no cars are involved.) But oh, was I hurting the next day! Jeremiah's does a tequila tasting next time. Um. We may pass on that. :) Even so, it was a great welcome back to Scotland with friends!